Hi guys,

I have a relatively new supervisor and I am her first PhD student. She is usually quite helpful and it is easy to get face time with her. I usually see her every 1-2 weeks and she is also fast with emails plus helpful when dealing with other issues.

The problem is I sometimes have trouble getting her to talk about my work. Literally, I try to talk about something I am doing and need help with but she takes a tangent and suddenly we are talking about a grant application. Try and bring the conversation back to my problem, talking about a paper she wants to write. Or research she wants to do, or what equipment she would like to have. Usually, in like a 30minute conversation I might get her to talk about my work for 5 or so minutes but recently it has become a lot harder. Sometimes it feels like everything she wants to talk about does not involve my work. Like assuming that I know what I am doing when really, I have no clue. It doesn't help that no-one else in my uni has any experience in my area, so there isn't anyone else I can go to with technical issues.

Normally this is okay but I am having some issues at the minute with equipment and what direction I should be taking (as the equipment isn't sensitive enough for what I originally planned). I have had about 4 months of equipment issues with minimal usable data and I am getting worried. I just want her advice, she is already giving me time, why can't she talk about my problems, not the future??

Sorry about the rant. But do you have any advice on how to manage your supervisor?

That is good advice, I never thought of it like that. Thank you!

So joining organizing committees are only good on a CV if you want to organize more in the future. To be honest organizing conferences later on in life is not really that rewarding but a pile of work. So I am probably going to keep it off the CV.

Though I am going to keep doing them just because they are relatively easy and learning to herd academics might be useful as a skill in its own right. Plus most of the meetings have free food.

Thanks for all the advice!

Hi Guys,

This is a question from my PhD office and I would like some more opinions on this.

Are there any real benefits from joining organizing committees for internal conferences? Like your department's postgraduate research symposium? These committees are usually student lead but with academics supervising the committee so that it tries to mimic real conferences.

I think these committees are a low energy task that can be easily managed around your work. While you get experience in how conferences are set-up and managed so that you can potentially do one in the future. Also as you have a better understanding of how the process works, you will be better at submitting to real conferences. Plus it will look good on your CV.

While most of my colleagues think they are a waste of time and too much effort while having no relevance whatsoever. As they argue that they aren't like real conferences so no-one cares if you have organized them. And you also gain no relevant experience. I know they aren't to the same standard but the organizing process has got to be the same at least?

I know I sound biased but would genuinely like some other opinions.

I think submitting with 3 good chapters is a risk. You need to be really good with not many flaws plus have a decent external who likes quality over quantity. You could get an external marker who thinks that a thesis need x amount of work whatever the quality, and there will not be much you can do. Externals are hard to predict and better to play safe.

I would pad the thesis with some null results or method development. Just so that you can show off your skills as a scientist as showing the methods of being a good researcher is nearly as important as getting good results. As a thesis is supposed to show that you are capable of being an independent researcher and three chapters might not be convincing enough, even if you were published.

PS: A girl at my university got major corrections despite 3 first name papers and I think 4 other papers. She got major corrections because her thesis was quote "not a thesis", whatever that means.

Are you spending most of your time setting up the simulations or running them? If it is taking forever to run can you get acces to a faster computer? There probably is a high spec desktop somewhere that you can use/book.

Or can you set up batches of simulations to run overnight? A few people in my office write their simulations during the afternoon and leave them to run/complete overnight. Then review their work in the morning, so that you spend your working hours doing constructive tasks.

Yes it is normal. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will your skills be. Next time you do it, you will probably do it faster and better because you know the software more. Keep trying and eventually it will become second nature. It can be tough and frustrating but you learn through failure. Though you might be able to speed things up if you can find another PhD student will knoweldge with the software, and trade help for beer.

However is it the right software? You might be trying to use the wrong software for your probem. So have you checked what other researchers are using or what your supervisor recommends? I would check that first.

I feel sorry for your daughter G57 but that is a sad part of academia. It is publish or perish and if you have a good idea, it isn't yours until you publish. Even then they can just reference your work. That is why they recommend you to only present work that is close to publication or present at a published conference.

The real question is how identical is it? Like I know someone doing a virtually identical project as mine at a nearby university but he is in a different department with a different approach. We are looking at the same objective and after talking with him, we realized that weren't really competitors as we were doing quite different experiments. Same project outline

If this Spanish group is EXACTLY the same, I can only recommend your daughter to speed up. If they are hiring now, she probably has 3-6 months to get a paper published and beat them to it. Try and work out what their expertise is or what equipment they have and do what they can't. A lot of academic papers are about differentiation and if you can reach the same conclusions with different methods, that is acceptable.

The plus side is that if your daughter does get published first, the Spanish group will have to cite her. Got to get them lovely citations.

EDIT: it isn't IP theft or professional misconduct, it is the ivory tower that is academic research

It is nice to hear a positive story here. Congratulations!

We have a moderator?

Also, I am doing fine; labs are awful, I have no data, I have massive writer's block and imposter syndrome but I got a free lunch today so everything is much better.

Is it an official title or what they call themselves? If it is the former - pass, if the latter they might just be calling themselves that to blow smoke. I know a third-year student that calls himself a "PhD fellow" as well and he made the title up himself to make his LinkedIn sound better. After so many years of education, you sometimes want to drop the student moniker and at least pretend to be something else.

In hindsight, I agree with you both (tudor and nutty) about powerpoint and word being good.

I was trying to make a few good infographics to explain my concept and making diagrams/infographics in Office is pretty horrible. I tried both Inkscape and illustrator, while very good for graphics they are woeful for text and making a poster. I would clarify and say that if you want some nice graphics, make them outside powerpoint and then just import them. So much easier.

There is someone (different department) at my uni who keeps bouncing between RA roles and her self-funded Ph.D. The department keeps getting grants for medium length research projects but can't justify a post-doc or someone full time. So she usually does 6-12 months of RA work to fund her research for 2-6 months full-time before the next RA role comes along. She seems to enjoy it and gets her name on soooo many papers.

So, I would say there is no stigma of doing RA work as long as you are good enough to show potential to do actual research.

I can feel your pain, I got landed with a summer student with a weeks notice and told "to use him". Like no guidance or forewarning and lots of expectation. Considering all my equipment was broken this summer he has had a fun few months reading. Though he at least he doesn't have to write a thesis.

It is unfair for them to expect you supervise a master's student by yourself. It can be hard to be critical of work if you have followed the progression through all the drafts, you became emotionally attached. Take it as experience and next time you can try to think more objectively about it. It is your first time "supervising" someone and you are only human. It will get easier as you do it more like everything in life.

It also sounds like you are perfect to be a PhD supervisor now. You are good at telling students their thesis is awesome, for them to fail a viva because of your bad advice. Literally half the supervisors on this forum are like that, so you are comparing yourself to too high of a standard.

Hi Guys,

Usually, I use powerpoint to make my posters because it was easy. But recently a friend recommended Inkscape (it is a knock-off version of illustrator) because you could make betterlooking posters. His posters look amazing but the Inkscape is very different

So I was just wondering what software do you use to make posters? Or are we all boring powerpoint users?

I think it depends the subject about what constitutes a thesis

You say you want to do a detailed then general analysis. Does that mean you have a detailed discussion of your results, then talk about how it fits in the field (lit review) and possible future work? I have never seen a future work section in a thesis but the rest can definitely be included if you structure it right, but your supervisor will know more.

My take on a PhD thesis is that is like a craftsman's masterpiece that he does to end his apprenticeship. Where you show that you can look at the field, find an unanswered question, break it down into simpler questions, do several chapters of research, then try and conclude it by saying that you have answered the question. In the end, it should be a body of work that shows off all the skills you have developed to become an independent researcher.

PS: I am still in my first year and haven't started my thesis, so I am probs not the best